How Hunter S. Thompson Taught His Son to Be a Man, a Father, and Totally Normal

During one of Hunter S. Thompson's most infamous parties—for which he and Ken Kesey invited a group of Hells Angels to the middle of the woods to drink and take acid—a baby quietly slept in the corner of one of the cabins. Years later this same boy clutched his father's back while terrified and speeding through the Colorado mountains on a motorcycle. The kid was the brunt of his father's verbose insults ("waterhead bastard" was a favorite). He witnessed a messy, abusive divorce, and somehow, even though he was the son of a booze-guzzling, gun-obsessed, LSD-loving genius, Juan F. Thompson grew up to be a stable adult.

Juan rebelled against his famously rebellious father by becoming normal. He has a family and works in IT. He lives a quiet life in Denver, a few hours from where he grew up in Aspen. There he lived in fear of his father, he shot guns, and experimented with plenty of drugs before graduating high school. It's a place he'd never live again—mostly because of the rampant wealth and non-existent middle class in the area (actually one of the few moments where he truly sounded like his father).

In February of 2005 Juan was in his childhood home of Owl Farm in Woody Creek, Colorado when his father shot himself in the next room. ("I heard a weird cry and a crack," he writes in his new memoir about his father, Stories I Tell Myself. "It was surgical, precise.") During the years after his death, Juan has grappled with his childhood, his relationship with his father, and how the two very different men found common ground later in life. Esquire spoke with Juan over the phone about what Hunter taught him about being a man, being a father, and how even the most untouchable of characters eventually become mortal.

I think a lot of readers would be surprised to learn that after such a tumultuous childhood how stable you are. You have a family, a job, you're not addicted to any substances. How'd you do that?

[Laughs] Part of it was a reaction to growing up with my dad and not wanting to be like him, not wanting the instability and the craziness. Hunter was a freelance writer his whole life. My mom, she didn't really work while I was growing up, so here he is supporting a family as a freelance writer. That's a hard way to make a living. And he wasn't financially responsible by any stretch of the imagination. So finances were chaotic and that's something I really wanted to avoid in my own life. And the same thing goes for the drinking and drugs. I did not want to be a crazy out of control person. It's funny to say that and then being in Aspen in the '70s drugs were easy to get and me and my friends experimented pretty early. So by the time I was a senior in high school, I was like, I'm done with my experimentation.

I know in the book you mention you were 14 when you first took acid and you were with your mother, and that Hunter would have beaten the shit out of you if he found out.

That's what he said. Someone asked him in one of his speaking engagements what he would do if I was taking acid and he said, "oh, I'll beat the shit out of him." I don't know if that's true. I think he would have been disappointed and worried. He was an alcoholic. He was a drug addict. He certainly didn't want that for me.

Do you think to an extent he was proud that you turned out this way?

Yeah, I mean he didn't say this, but I'm sure he was worried that I might decide to follow in my father's footsteps. What a disaster that would have been. There were plenty of people in Aspen like that. So I think he was really glad. Part of it was sort of selfish. He was glad to see that he hadn't ruined my life, so it was like, I must have not been too bad of a father because he turned out okay. And part of it was the basic father impulse that he was glad that I seemed to be happy and healthy.

It's funny that you mention that you turned out like this because you didn't want to be like him. Is that rebellion? How do you rebel against the most iconic rebel of the century?

[Laughs] Well you rebel by being normal, right? [Laughs] I think there's some truth to that.

Did you ever do psychedelics with Hunter?

God no. I really did not want to be out of control around him. Part of it, too, was when Hunter was on acid it brought out a mean side of him. The idea of tripping with Hunter, that's just wrong. There's just no telling what might have happened.

What do you think is the most important thing you learned from your father about being a man?

[Long pause]

My dad was such a man's man. First of all he was born in the late '30s. That was a different generation, but he was also just inherently a colorful macho guy. And when I was a kid I felt, oh gosh, I want to be like that but I don't seem to be able to be like that. There are a lot of ways to be a man, and Hunter's way was one way. That's not the only way or the best way. It's just one way. My way is more subdued. I don't feel like I'm any less of a man for that. And I really see that with my son, who at this point is more like me than Hunter. And if you asked my dad, he would be like, don't worry about that shit. Be a man in your own way. Don't feel like you have to imitate me.

What did Hunter teach you about being a father?

Even before he died as my dad and I became closer. I became more comfortable accepting those things we have in common. Not just accepting them, but being proud that these are things my dad and I share. Like the guns, a strong interest in politics, a cynicism about politics in general, driving, and motorcycles. I'm not a speed freak, but Hunter taught me some things about driving. I think one of the obvious things was that I learned what sorts of things I wanted to do differently from him. The biggest thing is I wanted to be part of my son's life. For my dad, being a father and having a family was not his highest priority. Writing was his thing. And to a certain extent having fun. But writing was always first. As a result he wasn't around very much. I learned growing up that I didn't want to be absent from my child's life all the time. I didn't want to scare my kids.

One thing that surprised me in the book is how emotional and symbolic Hunter's discipline of you was.

I mean, I would have been a lot less mad if he had just smacked me with a newspaper. When it actually came to disciplining me, his threats weren't imminent—though they were pretty scary at the time—but I don't think he would have ever hit me. The scariest thing about him wasn't what he did with me, it was watching him and my mom fight.

What do you think that says about him?

What was really important to Hunter in any kind of fight was to win. He wasn't interested in compromise, he wasn't interested in understanding. It was just about winning. So it made him a really bad husband. If things weren't going the way he wanted, he would deploy his tools. The most effective was a combination of his physical presence, with his voice and some carefully chosen words. And he was brilliant. He was a very good debater. He would take anything you said and distorted as needed and use it against you. He always had a piece of paper on the fridge that read "What is the desired effect?" He was always so good at getting reality to conform to his wishes.

When you think of your father what's the fondest memory that comes up?

Probably the night when I came up to see him the month before he killed himself. I came up alone and he and I for the whole night watching The Big Sleep. We weren't trying to have any meaningful time together. I gave up thinking that I had to talk about meaningful, important things to be connected. We just watched a movie, and talked about what we liked about it. It didn't end in yelling.

I'm amazed at how open you are about your father's final years. How do you think he would have felt about your honesty?

The key thing is I wrote this after he died. I would have never written the book like this if he were alive. There would have been so much that I would have been afraid to say or, just out of kindness and respect, wouldn't say. But after he was dead, I really believe that he would have wanted me to be as honest as possible without causing harm to other people. Tell the whole story. Some of the hardest stuff to write about was from the last couple years, when the alcohol had taken control of his nervous system and he couldn't control his bowels. I think it's important that people know that. Yes it was remarkable that he was able to drink and do as many drugs as he did for as long as he did and remain mostly functional. But that shit catches up with you. It's just a question of how long it's going to take. In that sense it's a cautionary tale.

In the chapter about his death it seems like there's a looming sense that it was coming. You even mentioned that he probably had his suicide planned for years.

He had talked about killing himself for a long time. That's how he was going to go. But it's one thing to say that, it's another to do that. It's one thing to hear that as a son and think that's not going to happen for a long time. He couldn't write anymore. His body was completely failing him. It was very difficult for him to get around. Then the incontinence on top of that and, you know, I could really understand how intolerable it was. It made sense, especially combined with the way he lived his life. Slowly dying in a hospital for months with doctors and nurses with complete control of his body: that was never going to happen. And he sure as hell wasn't going to go into a nursing home for alcohol-induced dementia. It was his decision.

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